PORKLE

I know I haven't posted in a while but that's partly because I've been busy with a new job! I've been working at this great startup in Boston called Hubspot and now that we got a bunch of money from Google (http://www.hubspot.com/blog/bid/10491/Sequoia-Google-Ventures-and-Salesforce-com-Invest-32-Million-in-HubSpot) we're going to be hiring some more engineers and QA folks. I immediately thought: "Share this bounty with the Nerd Fitness folks!". So yeah, if you want to move to Boston and work at one of the best companies there (http://www.hubspot.com/blog/bid/6082/Boston-Business-Journal-Names-HubSpot-the-1-Best-Place-to-Work), then shoot me an email at jsmith@hubspot.com and I'll personally put your resume on the desk of the hiring manager!

LOL... in the battle of personal anecdote vs. personal anecdote, EVERYBODY LOSES! Anyway, I'm no biologist so I can't speak to the quality of the research or anything but I found the book's argument compelling. That said, everyone here is grown and will make up their own mind. If anyone has any other competing dietary theories, let's get them all out on the table! I'm going to go to bed before I become this guy: http://xkcd.com/386/

I've already posted in this thread but I can't emphasize enough the importance of food quality over food quantity, for two reasons: health and weight-loss effectiveness. First, all calories are not created equal, nutrient-wise. 2000 calories of meats and vegetables is not the same as 2000 calories of beer, french toast and snickers bars. I think we'd all agree on that point. Second, calories aren't equal in terms of weight loss and hunger either. For instance, in one sitting, I can (and have done so regularly) eat an entire can of biscuits with honey. That's 1500 calories of starch and sugar. However, I once tried to eat as much chicken breasts and broccoli as I could and only managed around 900 calories worth. After a biscuit fest, I'm hungry in 4-5 hours... after meat/veggie fests, I'm not hungry for 7-8. Not only is quality food better for you, it fills you up in fewer calories. And it gets better... it turns out that "foods" with no calories (like Splenda) will make you MORE hungry instead of less http://www.sciencenetlinks.com/sci_update.php?DocID=226. NerdFitness-ians, you're all good people and I want you to be healthy and sexy. Please please please please please read "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes before you spend a ton of money and willpower trying to lose weight without evidence-supported science guiding your decisions. It's not an easy read but it's way easier than running endless miles on a treadmill or eating only rice cakes (btw, neither of which will make you lose weight). We're nerds, we can handle some science. I know I sound like a zealot about this but that book (and the Paleo Diet by Loren Cordain) are incredible.

Nice dude! Especially the walking... I only had one beer last night but I threw down a giant sub for lunch... so I guess they cancelled out?

If you want to just keep up with the general news, I'd try browsing http://news.ycombinator.com/ or slashdot or building a personal reddit with r/programming, r/linux, r/java, etc. Other than that, I usually check out whether OReilly http://oreilly.com/ has a book for the topic I'm trying to learn. You have to pair the reading with some practice projects though, otherwise you don't really learn anything IMO.

I do Ruby on Rails web development. I gotta say, developing web applications is super annoying. In order to be marginally competent, you need to learn HTML, Javascript, CSS (including IE quirks), the DOM, SQL, HTTP, your framework (Rails, J2EE, whatever) - AHHHHH. If you've ever tried to write Ruby server-side that generates Javascript to be sent back to the browser to inject HTML... it's a quoting and escape character hell. If it wasn't for jQuery, I'd probably have thrown my monitor out the window. If you can get a job where they let you do local development (iPhone dev, Windows GUI stuff, DBA, etc) then you get to focus on the actual cool problem solving and programming instead of fighting with a giant pile of tools. I just realized I've been bitching and not helping you at all. What I would do is dominate at school... if that's not enough work, build something FOR YOURSELF. Make a mod for your favorite game, web site for a club, build a blog, make a skin for your media player, host a family email server, whatever. You're always more motivated when it's a project that you are passionate about. Also, it's great for future employers to see that you have already built something successful. Finally, developing software is an activity where you tend to screw up a lot and learn through experience. Fun personal projects are a good place for that since the stakes are usually low. Anyway, I like programming in general but sometimes the good stuff of programming is obscured by crap (bad tools, poor management, etc). Good luck!

Nut butters are probably better for you than peanut butter. Mostly because peanuts aren't nuts, they're legumes (beans). If you subscribe to the paleo/primal eating habits, you'd choose nut butter over bean butter because of anti-nutrients in beans (which is why raw beans are usually soaked before eating, to leach out anti-nutrients). Then again, peanut butter probably isn't a big thing to worry about diet-wise. Sodas, alcohol, frozen dinners, fast food etc are at least an order of magnitude more important to avoid.

Go ahead, throw down some munchies. It's all about WHAT you munch on... for instance, it's pretty hard to stuff yourself to fatness with meats and veggies. However, my mom was making french toast tonight and I had 8 (!!!) pieces, despite the fact that I'd already had dinner. And there's always room for ice cream. What I'm saying is, being hungry is not healthy. If you are hungry, eat... it's what you eat (not really when or how much) that determines the health.

Article about how spreading your food over many small meals isn't any better than just a couple. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/health/23really.html?src=sch&pagewanted=all I have heard a lot about "keeping the metabolic furnace going" by eating nonstop but apparently that is wrong. What "broscience" will be slain by actual science next?

March 21 Rest day, all mom cooking. B+ March 21 Skipped Crossfit for the ultimate frisbee draft, all fast food, shitty sleep too. D+

March 15 So Sunday I was entirely useless. Hangover + time change. F--- Monday I slept in REALLY late then had Firehouse. I did manage a workout and decent dinner though... 4 rounds of 15 back extensions, knees2elbows and 65 lb overhead squats. Took about 20 minutes. This was not a good workout. Other folks were getting 6ish rounds in those 20 minutes. Mostly cause overhead squats are hard (they stress my wrists and my back) but that's the price I pay to improve my flexibility. Also, turns out that doing 10 back extensions in a warmup does not prepare you for a back extensions in the workout. Things I need to practice: pushups, back extensions. B- March 16 Rest day, all my food was terrible, still on a screwy sleep schedule. C March 17 Skipped my workouts, all my food was bad, sleep schedule improving. C- On a side note, I'm thinking about doing some intermittent fasting... I know I should improve my food quality first but the IF seems pretty easy for me and I'm heard rumors of people getting good results using it (both fat loss and energy/wellness). March 18 Food was much better (volume and quality). I've upgraded from the Double Stack to the Original Chik-fil-a sandwich and Mom is back to cooking (leftovers for breakfast YAY). Also it was max deadlift day at the gym. I did a bunch of 225s as a warmup then one-repped 275, 305, 315, 325, 335, 345, 350. So I didn't get a PR but I lifted much heavier overall and with better form. Today is a B (sleep is getting back to normal). March 19 Sleep was good. Food was reasonable (I got pizza with Chris before climbing) and climbing was okay. B- March 20 Finally... went to bed at 12:30 and up at 9:30. I'm BACK. Also, Mom cooking all day. Drove in to the gym for this workout: MURPH. Run a mile. Do 100 pullups, 200 pushups, 300 squats. Run a mile. It's time capped at 50 minutes. So the mile runs weren't an issue. However, the 200 pushups were. I was doing 20 rounds of 5-10-15. And I needed each round to be 90 seconds or less. However, they started taking too long cause of the pushups. So I stopped at ten rounds. Time: 40 min, meaning I probably could have finished in an hour. Pushups/dips are now officially my weakest exercise. I am instituting some sort of pushup system at work and home so that this situation improves ASAP. Today is a solid A.

lol @ GOMAD I was going to go with "squats and milk" but GOMAD is catchier

That's why you should just do sprints. The horror is over quickly... and if you are playing ultimate frisbee, there's a motivation to complete the sprint!

Thanks!

March 14 Oh god the booze my head I'm going back to sleep

March 11-13 Thursday I went climbing which was pleasant as usual. Friday I hit up Crossfit... this was a fun one: 400m run, 80 55lb kettlebell swings, 20 pullups 400m run, 40 55lb kettlebell swings, 10 pullups 400m run, 20 55lb kettlebell swings, 5 pullups 22 minutes... strangely enough my forearms/grip was the most tired. Anyway today is a well deserved rest day. And we filled out our team for spring league frisbee!!! However, I continue to fail at changing my eating habits. I give it a B-, mostly cause I hit the Crossfit workout HARD.

Shrimp is pretty dadgum tasty. I wouldn't worry about the nutrition, I'd worry about environmental damage. Apparently farmed shrimp is demolishing lots of mangrove swamps in South Asia. If you care, read Bottomfeeder by Taras Grescoe. Otherwise, carry on eating delicious shrimp!

March 10 Can't breath too good. So I didn't work out. Foodwise, good lunch, decent dinner. TO BED... B-

March 9 OMG TEH ALLERGIES! Head feel like brick, me stupid now... Food - It could have been worse... but I had fast food twice and ice cream twice. Exercise - Today was a rest day but I ended up washing my car, the dog and mowing the lawn. C+

Oh man, that is a great idea... coconut milk!

Thomas - I like that... don't be pushy or aggressive but make it obvious that there's a romantic interest. Much appreciated

You sir, throw down some pretty nasty deadlift numbers. I also enjoy the clean and jerks. At this rate I can almost pick up the average American woman and press her above my head... aka the NUGE PRESS.

March 8 Good day for doin stuff, bad day for breathing. ALLERGY FAIL. Food was pretty normal, which is to say not that great. Is it negating my climbing session if I go to Chikfila before hand? I mean, it doesn't negate the fun (today I was the one dude hanging with four ladies) or the improvements in climbing - but it might cancel out the waistline benefits. Anyway, other meal was ham & mustard on wheat and then the usual sausage biscuit breakfast (must buy bigass shake ingredients ASAP). Also made it to Crossfit. Owwwwww. Today was a 15 minute workout, try for max rounds of 5 clean and press (105 lbs), 10 pushups and 15 back extensions. This is everything I'm horrible at in one workout. Only got 3ish rounds but I definitely improved my clean. It just snaps up to my neck now!!! OTHER NEWS - all my lady prospects are emotionally unavailable after their relationships ended poorly. Some people suggest patient friendship (the ladies) and others suggest bringing them faux comfort & wine in a transparent attempt at becoming the "rebound guy" (the dudes). I'm going with patient friendship, mostly because I'm scared of making first moves.

Any luck with the soreness? Cool, you gotta tell me how the Primal Blueprint is... I love his blog but it's tough to get the full picture that way. And I feel you on the illness... apparently every plant in Atlanta started reproducing yesterday, I only have one functioning nostril at a time now.

Your diet sounds completely amazing. If I could eat like that I'd be an unstoppable machine. Good luck with the lifting and ab work and such...